On Night on New Caprica
by scifiaddict
Summary: A festival on New Caprica has several people contemplating the past and their futures.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 It was cold, and the weather was awful even for New Caprica, but you would never know it in the union hall that night. Everyone was dancing and carrying on like they were bound for prison in the morning. It was the last night of the festival of Aphrodite and with all the newlyweds around, it made the festival seem more boisterous than any Laura could remember prior to the end of the worlds. She stood back and watched the others dance and swirl around her, sipping a glass of homebrew mixed with some powdered orange juice to cut the taste. She wanted to soak in this moment and remember these laughing, happy people when she huddled against the cold later in her tent. She looked around and noticed Sam Anders also seemed to be standing off to the side, watching instead of joining. It was something Saul Tigh of all people pointed out to her. Of all the people left, Sam, like Laura, understood what it was like to be in charge of everyone around him. He knew what it was like to hold everyone's lives in his hands, how it made you of them but not one of them. Laura walked over, smiling.  
"It's hard, isn't it? Being yourself again after everything?" she said loudly over the music.

"It's funny. Before I used to wish I could just kick back and let someone else worry about all of it," Sam said with a wry grin.

Laura laughed, remembering all the times she had done just that. "It is nice to sleep again, although sometimes Baltar's decision-making process has me gazing at the roof longer than I should at night."

"I think if Baltar wants that kind of headache so badly he can damn well have it. Hell, all things considered, maybe he deserves it," Sam said, making Laura laugh again.

"Trust me, you have no idea how much," she replied, still giggling.

Sam looked at her a little oddly, then shrugged and said, "Hey, wanna dance? My wife is busy ordering everybody around in the kitchen." They looked over and saw her doing just that, working in tandem with Cally to make sure they all had something to soak up the booze in their stomachs at midnight as the festival demanded.

"Sure," Laura replied, quickly realizing, not for the first time, that he reminded her slightly of Billy or perhaps more correctly, what she thought Billy could have become. That night Laura danced until she could drop and sat around and laughed with the people who were no longer hers. She celebrated, not having any worries bigger than the strength of the homebrew. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 Jean Barolay sat at a table surrounded by people, not really listening to the whirl of conversations around her. Instead she watched, almost wanting to laugh at how this stupid holiday made everyone so damn sappy. She counted half a dozen couples who were now acting like sappy teenagers after spending the whole past month fighting. The festival of Aphrodite was never her favorite holiday even before the cylon attacks. It seemed like the gods conspired to make sure she was alone during it. Usually though, she was in some hotel running amok with the rest of her team. This year, even Hillard had found himself a date. She could have too; it just never felt right with anybody she met lately. It didn't help that most of her ability to let go got left behind with their dead friends on Caprica. Even now, surrounded by friends with a drink in her hand, she still felt like she should watch the horizon for the enemy. She didn't understand how the others could just move on and go forward. What happened was still burned into her brain, from the first blast to Cavil's outing on the hangar deck.

Sam's was the defection that hurt the most, even though that wasn't really what he did. She never wanted him like that, but before Kara, this was almost their holiday. Every year since they had started playing together, they would spend the night drinking and, joking about how relationships one night stands were the only sane relationships and marriage was for people who couldn't get laid anymore. Heck, it was one of the first things she wanted to say to him when he told her that he and Kara were getting married. Then she saw the dumb grin on his face and couldn't rain on his day. She threw her arms around him and congratulated him. She still hated playing second fiddle, even though she understood Kara, his wife, was supposed to come first. Truthfully, for all his tough talk, Sam was a total softy. She always knew she'd lose him someday, and at least Kara was his equal. Kara accepted her and was confident enough to include Jean, rather than shut her out, and knowing that eased the pain a little bit. Heck, she even understood how he could love Kara. In fact, some nights she wondered if she understood that too well. She shoved the thought away, though; she wasn't drunk enough to let herself think too much about that yet.

She turned instead to Jammer on her right and smiled. He was the only unattached guy at the table. He smiled back and said, "I didn't think you'd want to talk to me after that dinner disaster at Kara and Sam's."

She leaned closer so they didn't have to shout. "That wasn't your fault. Those two are the idiots for trying to play matchmaker in the first place."

"I just figured you stormed out because you thought I was beneath you somehow," Jammer said, looking somewhat uncomfortable.

"I just didn't want those two idiots thinking they had a good idea. Trust me, Sam is the last person who should ever give relationship advice," Jean said, trying to make light of the incident. She hadn't really objected to Jammer. It was just that she resented the idea that she was such a loser that she needed to be fixed up, especially by those two.

Jammer chuckled and relaxed. "So you wouldn't hit me if I asked you to dance?" he asked, extending his hand.

"Let's go," Jean said as she reached over and grabbed his hand.

'What the hell,' she thought. Jammer wasn't ugly, and it beat sitting there brooding on thoughts she really didn't want to think. So Jean drank and danced and acted like a sap, thinking that maybe if she pretended long enough, she would actually feel happy. She went home with Jammer that night, hoping a quick frak would fix things, but she was gone before he woke up the next morning. Jammer was a nice boy, and she had stopped being a nice girl a long time ago. Jean Barolay wasn't the same girl she was a year ago. She was nice then. She played on a team and played by the rules. Now, she had spent months on the run,  
carrying a gun and blowing shit up. She wasn't sure what she was anymore, but nice girl she wasn't. 


End file.
